Conversations with Branka
by Warden's Vigil
Summary: Oghren might have lost Branka to the Deep Roads and madness, but he's never forgotten her.


He laughed and joked as he got up from the table. The card game had been fun that night, with lots of teasing and poking fun at each other, and a good time was had by all. Oghren, in particular, had been one of the loudest, most boisterous voices, which of course was nothing unusual. He waved to the guards he'd been sharing drinks and stories and jibes with and made his way up the stairs.

As he entered the hall that held his room, he still smiled and chuckled softly to himself. "Bunch a' nughumpers," he said with a grin. "Ah, good times." He reached his room and opened the door wide to allow entry, then closed it quietly behind him after he got into the room enough so he wouldn't hit himself on the ass.

Once the door was latched, he leaned forward until his forehead was against the door as his shoulders slumped and his smile disappeared. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, then another, before a shudder ran through his powerful frame. A long, drawn-out sigh followed as Oghren pushed himself off the door. He walked over to his bed, dropping his tunic on the floor without care. He didn't sodding feel like dealing with it then. It could wait til morning.

He gently placed his flagon on the bedside table and sat heavily on the edge of the bed. He looked across at the nearly bare wall, except for the lone shelf that had two figurines on it. One was ceramic, and one was stone. He stood up with another sigh and crossed the room to gingerly pick up the ceramic figurine, then went back to the side of his bed and sat down as wearily as before.

He traced the contours of the figurine in his hands with his head bent – mane, tail, back – as he admired the glazing and the paint on it. The ceramic pony was painted realistically; it was brown with a black mane and tail, and its hooves were positioned so that it looked like it was dancing. He sat quietly for a moment, his face arranged into a crestfallen expression, as he contemplated.

"It's sodding boring without ya here, Branka." Oghren sighed and his shoulders slumped further. "We might have had our differences, but life was never boring." He turned the pony over and looked it in the eye. "What did you ever see in these things anyway? It's not like we coulda had real ones livin' in Orzammar. I guess they're decent enough lookin' though." He reached out one hand and grabbed his flagon and took a swig from it, then set it down.

After another long silence followed by another heavy sigh, he spoke again. His voice held resignation and self-loathing in it. "Why did you leave? I know I was never good enough for ya, but," his tone carried the weight of a question oft-asked and never answered, "but I loved you. I really tried to do my best by ya, gal. I never cheated or hit ya or any o' that stuff." He took another swig and told himself that he had trouble seeing because the strength of the alcohol made his eyes water. Right.

He moved suddenly, then, and put the flagon down on the table before wiping his eyes with his wrist. He put the small figurine back on the shelf carefully, then sat back on his bed, this time with his legs stretched out along the length of the bed and his head against the headboard. He picked up the flagon and chugged the rest of it down, making sure to get every last drop of liquor from the large container before dropping it carelessly on the ground beside the bed. He kicked off his boots and let them fall where they might, then reached into his bedside table and pulled out a new bottle and broke the seal.

He held the bottle out in front of him in an imaginary toast. "Happy anniversary, Branka." He wiped more suspicious dampness from his eyes and sat up drinking the bottle until he passed out.

**-==##==-**

When he entered his room that night, he set down his flagon on the nightstand and removed his armor carefully before putting it on the armor stand. He hung each piece so that it was straight and would air out properly, then stripped down to his smallclothes before getting the stone horse figurine off his shelf and sitting cross-legged in the center of his bed.

He just sat and looked at the figurine for a while, tracing the etched grooves in the stone with his fingernail and smoothing the pad of his thumb over the engraved saddle. After a few minutes, he stopped his perusal of the figurine long enough to lean over and get his flagon and take a small drink. He capped the flagon and put it back on the nightstand, then resumed his examination of the figurine.

"Got a letter from Felsi. Her and little Aedan – they're doing pretty good. Felsi didn't even mind too much that my last letter was kinda messy. She just said to watch with the sodding language, so that Aedan doesn't learn it from me." He laughed quietly to himself. "He's gonna learn it anyway though, so it's probably not a big deal if he learns it from me. Felsi won't let him get away with sayin' stuff he's not supposed to. Anyway, you'd have liked her. She doesn't take crap from anybody, especially me." He chuckled again. "I sure gave her plenty of crap too."

He fell silent again and mused over his day. "Training was good with the kids today. I think some of their lessons mighta stuck for a change. Ancestors know they land on their asses often enough that it should knock some sense into 'em." He laughed quietly at his own joke, then paused for a minute as he turned the miniature horse over in his hands. "One of the kids actually almost got a hit in on me today. I'm gonna have to sodding pay attention." He smiled at the statement. It wasn't one of his leering smiles, but an expression of genuine pride and pleasure. "I feel like I did something that got _results_today, Branka. You know how it is with me. That doesn't happen too often." He sighed quietly to himself and shook his head. "It always surprises me when it does."

With a grunt, he got up from the bed and replaced the stone figurine on the shelf, then went back to the bed and turned down the covers. He climbed in and took one last swig, another small one, before he lay down to rest for the night. "G'night, Branka," he murmured sleepily. "Stone keep ya, gal." He rolled onto his side and a few minutes later, gentle snores were all that were heard in the room.

**-==##==-**

"Been a busy week, gal." Oghren was sitting on his bed, the stone figurine in his hand. "I meant ta talk to ya the other night, but I got distracted. There was this human gal, Sadie her name was. Heh. She was sodding _hot_." He bent his knees and propped his arms up while he looked at the stone that had been carved smooth. "Nice gal too. She's a good kid. Dunno why she let me talk ta her." He shook his head and snorted.

"Anyway, we had a surfacer festival thing we went to. It was sodding great! Sigrun went and so did Sparklefingers. You remember me talkin' about them. They're good ta have on yer side." He grinned. "Durdal met us there and it was a good time. A couple times, it felt like an Orzammar festival. Sophie, she's this prostitute I met, she even got me ta dance!" He laughed as he remembered it. "It was sodding funny. You prob'ly knew it already, but prostitutes are like noble hunters, only you just pay 'em outright. Still, she's a nice gal too, and she doesn't expect much, so I can't let her down." He put his head down then, against his chest, and sighed heavily. "All I gotta do is buy time with her."

He sat that way, silent, for a few minutes, but then suddenly he was all motion as he rubbed a tired face with his free hand and got up, still holding the figurine, and began pacing the room. When he got bored with that, he sat at his desk and plunked the figurine down in front of him and just stared at it.

"The Kid should be back soon, maybe tomorrow," he whispered. "I sodding miss that boy. He's one of the few who gets me, Branka. It's gonna be hard ta sleep. But, heheheh," he brightened up and started grinning as the thought occurred to him, "my new brew I'd been making should be ready tomorrow! Heh heh heh. I'll make sure to give him the first tankard. I'll have it ready and waiting at the gates for when he shows up. Already gave the recruits the mornin' off, just in case." He sat for a minute then. "Eh, those kids, some of 'em are sodding hopeless. It's getting' better but they wouldn't last a day in the Deep Roads." He grinned down at the figurine. "Good thing humans go down a lot easier than darkspawn, huh gal?" The thought made him chuckle, and with that, he picked the figurine back up and stood to put it back on its place on the shelf.

He got ready for bed, and slid under the covers while he got one last drink from his flagon for the day. "Stone keep ya, gal," he said, just like he did nearly every night, and rolled over to try to get a little shut-eye in before the next day.


End file.
